Breaking The Lease Without Penalty May Be Impossible

Added January 4, 2010 by Ilyce R. Glink

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Summary: Breaking The Lease Without Penalty May Be Impossible Once you sign a lease for an apartment or house rental, you are responsible for fulfilling the terms of your lease. If you want to leave before the lease ends, you will usually have to pay some form of penalty. You are also responsible for any damages, according to the terms of your lease. If you have roommates, you will still be responsible for their damages to the apartment. Make sure you understand the terms of your lease because breaking the lease without penalty may be impossible.

Q: My son was a student at Georgia Southern. He is not returning in the spring and has an apartment lease until May 15. He will vacate the property by December 30th.

I called the management office for the complex to ask about paying the final month of rent in full at the end of December and doing a final walk-through. He has an individual lease and has three other roommates.

The building manager says that we cannot do the final walk through until May and that my son will continue to be responsible for damages incurred as per the lease. Do you know any way around this?

A: I don't.

Unfortunately, when you sign a legal document, you're responsible for all of the promises you made during the term of the contract.

Your son probably signed a lease through May 15. Unless the landlord agrees to let him out of his lease, your son is responsible for the property through the end of the lease term. If your son isn't there, he won't know what damage his roommates caused, but still will be legally liable to pay for it.

Did you ask the landlord if she would be willing to take two extra months of rent to release him from the lease? If that won’t work, then your son should show up on campus up a few days before the end of the lease, to assess the damage and to help his roommates in bringing the property to the condition it needs to be in to fulfill his obligations under the lease.

Your son might try to find another roommate to take over his share of the rent and see if the landlord will agree to discharge your son of his obligations under the lease term.

Learn more about Using Security Deposit To Cover Renter's Damages, Unpaid Rent

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